Chapter 11. Variability in the case patterns of causative formation in Romance and its implications
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Esther Torrego
Abstract
Taking Folli and Harley’s (2007) analysis of Italian fare-causatives as a starting point, and focusing on Spanish, I examine variation in the distribution of the subject of the embedded infinitive in so-called faire-causatives, and I suggest that there is a robust correlation between the size of the embedded complement and the licensing of particular arguments. I reach this conclusion by investigating syntactic complexity in the domain of hacer-causatives, showing that richer structures obtain when Case factors associated with dative-case-marked arguments are considered. I further show that the specific conditions imposed by these arguments are language particular and arise in the language independently of analytical causatives.
Abstract
Taking Folli and Harley’s (2007) analysis of Italian fare-causatives as a starting point, and focusing on Spanish, I examine variation in the distribution of the subject of the embedded infinitive in so-called faire-causatives, and I suggest that there is a robust correlation between the size of the embedded complement and the licensing of particular arguments. I reach this conclusion by investigating syntactic complexity in the domain of hacer-causatives, showing that richer structures obtain when Case factors associated with dative-case-marked arguments are considered. I further show that the specific conditions imposed by these arguments are language particular and arise in the language independently of analytical causatives.
Chapters in this book
- Prelim pages i
- Table of contents v
- Acknowledgments vii
- Contributors ix
- Introduction 1
- Chapter 1. Structure at the bottom 5
- Chapter 2. The absent, the silent, and the audible 19
- Chapter 3. Lexical change and the architecture of the Lexicon 41
- Chapter 4. Dylan Thomas’s meters 67
- Chapter 5. The metrical system of William Carlos Williams 87
- Chapter 6. Linearization preferences given “Free Word Order”; subject preferences given ergativity 115
- Chapter 7. On the fronting of non-contrastive topics in Germanic 143
- Chapter 8. Blackjack! 171
- Chapter 9. Connectivity and definiteness in an English equative construction 201
- Chapter 10. On certain distributional gaps of Spanish possessives 217
- Chapter 11. Variability in the case patterns of causative formation in Romance and its implications 237
- Index 269
Chapters in this book
- Prelim pages i
- Table of contents v
- Acknowledgments vii
- Contributors ix
- Introduction 1
- Chapter 1. Structure at the bottom 5
- Chapter 2. The absent, the silent, and the audible 19
- Chapter 3. Lexical change and the architecture of the Lexicon 41
- Chapter 4. Dylan Thomas’s meters 67
- Chapter 5. The metrical system of William Carlos Williams 87
- Chapter 6. Linearization preferences given “Free Word Order”; subject preferences given ergativity 115
- Chapter 7. On the fronting of non-contrastive topics in Germanic 143
- Chapter 8. Blackjack! 171
- Chapter 9. Connectivity and definiteness in an English equative construction 201
- Chapter 10. On certain distributional gaps of Spanish possessives 217
- Chapter 11. Variability in the case patterns of causative formation in Romance and its implications 237
- Index 269
